This invention relates to a hand-carriable drug preparation tray for containing different drugs for one patient.
At hospitals, drugs including powdered drugs, tablets, drugs for external applications and liquid drugs, are filled, selected, packed and delivered to a pharmacy window according to a prescription or prescription-based instruction sheet for each patient. These steps are carried out fully automatically in some hospitals, partially automatically in other hospitals, and completely manually in other hospitals.
Aside from the case in which the drug preparation steps are carried out completely automatically, drugs prepared and selected for each patient on a drug preparation table are usually hand-carried from the preparation tables to a predetermined position of a shelf for each patient. Some of such shelves are provided with lamps corresponding to e.g. powdered drugs, tablets and liquid drugs. When all the lamps are turned off or on, the pharmacist knows that the drug preparation for one patient has been completed.
In this arrangement, drug preparation is very troublesome because different kinds of drugs for each patient have to be prepared at different places and carried to one place in the shelf.
Moreover, the shelf has to be large enough to store drugs for a relatively large number of patients so that the drugs can all be prepared at once. Such a large shelf can take up a big space in a small pharmacy.
An object of this invention is to provide a hand-carriable drug preparation tray having a display unit for indicating the types of drugs in the tray so that pharmacists can check the contents of the tray while collecting drugs.